Monday, July 30, 2012

The armed men walked into the Sierra Madre office of the El Norte newspaper in the northern city of Monterrey, threatened a security guard, poured gasoline out of canisters and lit the building on fire, the newspaper said.
Fifteen people were working in the office at the time. Since Mexico declared an open war on drug cartels, journalists have been kidnapped, killed and threatened - particularly those who cover drug trafficking and institutional corruption. Since 2000, more than 70 journalists have been killed in the country.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Mitt Romney has shipped lots of criticism about his various comments in London while there for the Olympics. Democrats have tried to portray him as Sarah Palinesque in his inability to articulate and get basic facts wrong, but when you examine what he said was it all that bad?
Firstly his comments on British preparations for the Olympics were spot on. He was asked about Britain’s preparations for the Olympics and instead of waffling about how great they were, he pointed up some concerns.
"There are a few things that were disconcerting," Romney said. "The stories about the private security firm not having enough people, the supposed strike of the immigration and customs officials – that obviously is not something which is encouraging."
What could be wrong with that? A politician tells the truth and he was, of course, immediately slammed for it.

Of course, the main reason that Romney was attacked is that he is a Republican. If a Democrat like Obama had said the same things he would have been praised for his keen intelligence.

Jimmy Meng didn’t even wait until he was out of the courthouse before he called the witness whose secret recordings led to the former Queens assemblyman’s arrest for wire fraud. Meng, free on $1 million bond, was hauled back into Brooklyn Federal Court, and a judge gave him a tongue-lashing for phoning the unnamed witness. Meng, 68, the first Asian-American elected to the state Legislature, was charged with wire fraud for claiming he could influence prosecutors to fix the witness’ criminal case in return for $80,000, authorities said. Prosecutors believe Meng was feeding the witness a line of bull. “It is a violation of this bond to threaten or attempt to influence the testimony of anybody who might be a witness against you in the case,” Magistrate Judge Cheryl Pollak scolded. “If you do it again, you’re going to jail.” Assistant U.S. Attorney Marisa Seifan told the judge that after Meng’s call, an unidentified associate of his also “reached out” to the witness. Meng appeared glum in court and was still wearing the same blue short-sleeve collared shirt and khaki slacks he wore when FBI agents pinched him at his Queens lumber yard. The agents slapped handcuffs on Meng after he accepted from the cooperating witness a fruit basket containing $80,000 in cash — as Meng had instructed — to be used to bribe Manhattan prosecutors. The feds pressed Meng to cooperate in an ongoing corruption investigation that includes among its targets the fund-raising in the city’s Asian community that City Controller John Liu’s mayoral campaign has undertaken, sources said. But Meng refused to cooperate with the government. Meng next faces indictment on federal wire fraud charges, but, in a political sense, the jury’s out on whether his arrest will affect the political aspirations or fund-raising abilities of his daughter, Queens Assemblywoman Grace Meng, who is running for Congress. Grace Meng, who won a four-way Democratic primary and is being challenged in the general election by GOP City Councilman Dan Halloran, was quiet on her father’s bust — and follow-up call. She had issued a statement that distanced herself from her father’s actions, and urged him to cooperate fully with the feds.

The sickle cell trait, for which all U.S. African Americans are tested at birth, affects approximately 8% of the population. The Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation maintains a 32-year-old forensic database, the U.S. Sudden Death in Athletes Registry, which researchers interrogated to determine the frequency, epidemiology and clinical profile of sickle cell trait-related deaths in a large population of competitive athletes for the purposes of this study. The findings from this registry show that there is convincing evidence of a causal relationship between the sickle cell trait and the deaths of young, black competitive athletes, especially football players. Prior to this registry study, a lawsuit and previous research prompted the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to conduct mandatory screening for the sickle cell trait in all division I athletes prior to their participation in college athletics. As of yet, the NCAA has not expanded to the screening program to division II or III athletes, nor has the association shared its data with the medical community. Of the 2,462 athlete deaths in the U.S. Sudden Death in Athletes Registry, which provides the first and largest published record of athletes who died of sudden cardiac death on an athletic field, 23 occurred in association with the sickle cell trait (ages 12 to 22 years): 21 were male and all were African Americans. The deaths most often occurred in college-aged athletes (19-23 years) during football conditioning drills early in the season, and with those exposed to high environmental temperatures. In the study, the researchers concluded that the sickle cell trait can be associated with largely unpredictable sudden collapse and death and apparent predilection for African American college football players during conditioning.

Frederico Bruno, of Belleville, New Jersey, was found hiding in a refrigerator after the brutal attack, which has left the 20-year-old woman and her baby fighting for their lives. Bruno let himself in to his former girlfriend's Jersey City apartment and hid while he waited for her to come home. When she returned with the black suspect's baby and a friend, he attacked the woman and turned on her 21-year-old friend with a carving knife when she threatened to call 911. After slicing the friend to within an inch of her life, Bruno then climbed down the building's fire escape and, using a table, continued to attack the mother of his child, who was lying on the ground on top of her child after the pair had plunged three stories out the window. The ex-girlfriend had an order of protection against him, authorities said. Bruno fled to a family member's home after the attack and slept for most of the day, then told his teenage niece and nephews what had happened when he woke up. Police cordoned off the area surrounding the four-story building on Rutgers Avenue as they searched for Bruno, whom they called armed and dangerous. They eventually found him hiding in a refrigerator in a vacant building near where his siblings live. Bruno is facing three counts of aggravated assault charges. Bail was set at $300,000 for each count.

The Amish population is spreading faster than most other religious communities in the United States with a new settlement founded nearly once a month according to a new report. With a population doubling in size approximately every 21 years, the census report by researchers at Ohio State University shows that more than 60% of the current communities were founded after 1990. They're doubling their population about every 21 to 22 years, primarily because they produce large families and the vast majority of daughters and sons remain in the community as adults baptized into the faith, starting their own families and sustaining their religious beliefs and practices.

The Jewish billionaire businessman-turned-New York mayor said that Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, along with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee, are wrong “to look at somebody’s political views and decide whether or not they can live in the city, or operate a business in the city.” Bloomberg said that “trampling on the freedom to marry whoever you want is exactly the same as trampling on your freedom to open a store.” Nice to see that Bloomberg can say some sensible things once in a while.

Friday, July 27, 2012

The political figure who garners the most support among Hispanics is Michelle Obama with a 69% favorable rating, quite a bit higher than Ann Romney, the wife of the Republican candidate, who has just a 20% approval rating among the Latino electorate. Sixty-four percent of Hispanics say that they prefer a Congress with a Democratic majority compared with just 24% who are in favor of Republican control of the legislative branch.

Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said that a month-long investigation lead to the recent arrests on charges stemming from a kidnapping in North Arlington. Police there received a report of an incident and arrived to find a pickup truck with its windows smashed in the early morning hours of July 1, 2012. A female victim told police that several people in two cars had assaulted her boyfriend and thrown him into one of the vehicles. The woman told police that one of the vehicles was a burgundy Acura, and provided a partial plate number. Police found the car parked outside an apartment building in North Arlington around 10 a.m. that morning and located Jesus Henrique-Marte and his girlfriend, Yulissa Liranzo-Guerrero. The two were brought in for questioning and charged with kidnapping and aggravated assault. Later that afternoon, police identified the occupants of the second vehicle, a white Honda, as Garfield residents Harold Williams and Diana Rodrigues. They were arrested at their Outwater Lane apartment and similarly charged. Bail was set for the two men at $300,000 each and at $200,000 for each of the two women. All of them are still being held at the Bergen County Jail.

A Massachusetts police officer has been fired after shouting a "racial insult" at Boston Red Sox star Carl Crawford. The black outfielder was signing autographs before a game in New Hampshire when he was branded a "Monday" by a heckler in the stands. The comment was traced back to off-duty officer John Perreault. Apparently, the term "Monday" can be used as a racist statement towards African-Americans and in some cases is tantamount to calling them a "n*gg*r", according to the Urban Dictionary. It supposedly comes from the common dislike for the first day of the working week and is often used in the hope the abused person will not be aware it is an insult.

Gerrit Oeller, 16, was with two friends who tried to explain to the enraged black man that the salute was not meant as an insult, and that he could not control his arm.
But when the Tourette’s led the teenager to grin insanely at the black man as well, he went mad, hitting Gerrit so hard that he ended up unconscious. The attack happened on an underground line in the Dulsberg district of Hamburg in northern Germany. Another benefit of diversity ... violent black people.

The slow rate, between April and June 2012, comes after Americans cut back sharply on spending and adds to worries that the economy could be stalling three years after the recession supposedly ended. It is significantly down from the 2% rate between January and March 2012. Growth at or below 2% isn't enough to lower the unemployment rate, which is 8.2% - and most economists don't expect growth to pick up much in the second half of the year. The U.S. economy has never been so sluggish this long into a recovery. The Great Recession officially ended in June 2009.

Actually, he has done that and more! Menino effectively gave away city land valued at $1.8 million to the organization, and he gave a speech at its ribbon-cutting ceremony. It’s the Islamic Society of Boston’s mosque, and when it comes to anti-gay sentiment, one of its early supporters makes Chick-fil-A look like the Provincetown Men’s Chorus. During the controversy over the city selling land for a house of worship at a below-market rate a decade ago, reporters discovered that the Islamic Society of Boston counted imam Yusef al-Qaradawi as one of its spiritual guides. The ISB does not dispute the fact that they have repeatedly used al-Qaradawi as a tool to raise funds for the Boston mosque, printing a brochure that highlighted al-Qaradawi’s enthusiastic support of the mosque and playing a videotaped message of support from him at a 2002 gathering. Also in attendance at the gathering, listening to al-Qaradawi’s message: Mayor Tom Menino. Outside Boston, al-Qaradawi is better known as a vocal supporter of terrorism who teaches a hard-core version of Islam. His claim to fame as a “progressive” is that he was the first prominent imam to urge women to become suicide bombers, too. It was only when his terror support became known that the Islamic Society of Boston announced that repeated listings of al-Qaradawi as an ISB trustee had been a mistake. But nobody’s accusing Chick-fil-A of supporting terrorism — just traditional marriage. Menino heard the president of the company call same-sex marriage a “sin,” and he announced it would not be allowed to do business in Boston. When Menino gave all that land to the ISB at a song, here’s what imam al-Qaradawi was teaching: “[A homosexual should be given] the same punishment as any sexual pervert . . . Some say we should throw them from a high place, like God did with the people of Sodom. Some say we should burn them.” According to the Anti-Defamation League, “In 2003 Qaradawi stated on IslamOnline that the punishment of homosexuality is the death penalty.” In the end, al-Qaradawi came down on the side of stoning. Say what you want about Chick-fil-A, but they aren’t trying to kill anyone. Chick-fil-A wants to come to Boston, pay taxes and put people to work. Menino says “no” because the CEO thinks same-sex marriage is wrong. But that same mayor was all but giving away city land to the Islamic Society of Boston, even as they were presenting as one of their spiritual guides an imam who says homosexuals should be killed.

Disgraced Julian Hughes-John, 31, who represented Great Britain in its Bobsleigh team throughout Europe, was part of a trio who bundled their victim into a van whilst brandishing a shotgun and wearing balaclavas, before hammering a drill bit into his ankle. The gang were caught after a passing police car spotted the suspicious van parked in Selsey Road, Luton, Bedfordshire on March 24, 2011 and stopped to speak to the driver. The van pulled away, before stopping further down the road, where the three men fled. When they checked the vehicle, officers were shocked to find a 32-year-old man tied up inside. The culprits were later caught and arrested. Hughes-John, from Luton, was found guilty of kidnap and grievous bodily harm with intent and sentenced to 12 years in prison with a public protection order, meaning he will be on license for a minimum of ten years after he has completed his sentence, half of which must be served in custody. The court heard how, after being imprisoned ten years ago for his part in an armed robbery, Hughes-John turned his life around through sport, being selected to compete in the British bob-sleigh team across Europe. But after the United States refused him a visa to enter the country and compete, because of his violent history, he turned back to a life of crime.

The population boom has already pushed many primary schools to breaking point and forced town halls to draw up emergency plans to teach children in disused shops and warehouses. Now figures from the Department for Education have shown the number of pupils in state schools is expected to rise to 7,950,000 by the end of the decade – 935,000 more than now. Primary and nursery schools will need an extra 736,000 places by 2020, with the remaining places required at secondary and special schools. The figures also show 106,000 fewer places would be needed by 2020 if migration was reduced to zero. The shortage of places is driven by immigration and a rise in the birth rate which began in 2002 and is predicted to continue until 2014. Overcrowded schools - another benefit of immigration, diversity and multiculturalism.

Angel Wilburn — known as "Lock Man" after he bragged that he sold about 50 locks to swimmers daily — was arrested near the pool after a woman told cops that she had an order of protection against him. Police then checked his extensive history of arrests. "All we arrested him for was for being an unlicensed general vendor," said a police source. "He wasn't violating his order of protection against her since it's a public place."
But the source added, "This guy raised a lot of red flags. He's got a huge record of minor sex crimes and here he is outside of the pool." Wilburn, 49, has been in prison three times — twice for grand larceny and attempted robbery and once for drug possession, records show — and he has been charged with public lewdness 14 times and has multiple orders of protection filed against him by women, police sources said. In Brooklyn, Wilburn has pleaded guilty to public lewdness three times — in 2005, 2007, and 2008 — and to petit larceny in 2010, officials said. He has two other outstanding cases in Brooklyn, one for petit larceny, attempted distribution of indecent materials to minors and public lewdness, and another for public urination, according to court records. Wilburn was held overnight at Brooklyn Central Booking and awaited arraignment at Brooklyn Criminal Court, officials said.

The New York Times Company has reported a second-quarter loss because of a write-down in the value of About.com and continuing declines in print and digital advertising revenue. The net loss was $88.1 million, or 60 cents a share, compared with a net loss of $119.7 million, or 79 cents a share, in the period a year earlier, when the company wrote down the value of its regional newspapers, which it later sold. The Times Company had an operating loss of $143.6 million in the quarter ended June 24, 2012 compared with an operating profit of $31.5 million in the period a year earlier. Advertising revenue at the company’s News Media Group, which includes The Times, The International Herald Tribune and The Boston Globe, fell 6.6%, to $220 million. Print advertising revenue fell 8%, in part because of continued weakness in real estate advertising. Online advertising revenue at the news media group declined 1.6%, to $52.6 million, despite a push in video and other efforts to bring new advertisers to NYTimes.com.

In the Weimar Republic, Jews were only 1% of the German population, but they were 10% of the country's doctors and dentists, 17% of its lawyers and a large percentage of its scientific community. Jews won 27% of Nobel Prizes won by Germans. Nearly 80% of the players in the National Basketball Association in 2011 were black, and only 17% were white while Asians were only 1%. Also, the highest-paid NBA players are black. Different groups have different talents so just because a group - such as blacks - is over- or underrepresented in a particular area, this is not evidence of discrimination.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

African-American 17-year-old Rondell Pinkerton faced a judge, three days after he shot and killed a 4-year-old boy. The Bronx DA's office said that Pinkerton admitted to police that he fired a .45 caliber handgun. In a confession, he told police that he was handed the gun as he walked towards the basketball courts at the Forest Houses. He claims that 26-year-old Courtney Kelly shot at him, so he returned fire. The criminal complaint says that Pinkerton shot Kelly in the body, shot another person in the arm and killed 4-year-old Lloyd Morgan. Morgan, who was in the public park in Morissania at the time, died from a bullet wound to the head. Now, friends, family and neighbors are lighting candles and leaving tributes to the child. The tragic death of Lloyd Morgan actually came while area residents were honoring the victim of another violent killing with a basketball tournament. Troynisha Harris was stabbed to death in Morrisania two years ago and sources say that the second suspect in this case, Courtney Kelly was the organizer of the tournament. The 18-year-old stabbing victim was his sister. Kelly, now hospitalized, faces charges of criminal possession of a weapon.

Dante Picott appeared in court via video for the first time for a bail review hearing before Judge Gerald Council as his family members watched silently from the courtroom.
He has been charged with robbery, kidnapping, four counts of aggravated sexual assault and two counts of sexual assault. Surveillance video outside an apartment building on the 300 block of Bellevue Avenue in Trenton captured a woman being abducted, beaten and raped. The woman, who was not identified, told police that she was getting home at approximately 1:30 a.m. when a man came up behind her and demanded money. When she refused him, he began to argue with her and then he put his arm around her and dragged her to the side of the building. The man beat her until she was unconscious, pulled down his pants and her pants and raped her several times, officials said. The woman was taken to Capitol Health Regional Medical Center where DNA evidence was taken. Following an investigation by the Trenton Police Department and the Mercer County Prosecutor's child abuse/sexual assault unit, the DNA was a match for Picott, officials said. Picott is being held at the Mercer County Correctional Facility on $400,000 bail. Picott was arrested three times as a juvenile and convicted on burglary charges as a juvenile in 2006. He has another pending juvenile case in Burlington County.

The high maternal testosterone levels associated with a low-protein diet are caused by reduced activity of an enzyme that inactivates testosterone, allowing more testosterone to reach the fetus and increase the offspring's susceptibility to adulthood hypertension.

Researchers found that the slowest-growing metro areas had lower unemployment rates, lower poverty rates, higher income levels, and were less impacted by the recession than the fastest-growing areas. In fact, in 2009, local residents of slower-growing areas averaged $8,455 more per capita in personal income than those of the fastest-growing areas. Population growth is not creating employment opportunities. Instead it is reducing them as newcomers fill job openings. The slowest growing areas were located in 13 different states, including Connecticut, New York, and Ohio while the fastest-growing areas came from 12 different states, dominated by California, Florida, and Texas. California, Florida and Texas have high levels of Hispanic immigration which may be an important factor.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

For young black males, the numbers are even more alarming - only 1.2% of the population but committing 27% of all homicides. This means that even though there are about five young white males for every young black one, the blacks still commit a greater number of homicides.

Police shot dead four rioters in India's northeastern state of Assam as security forces struggled to contain ethnic fighting that has killed at least 30 people and left riverside hamlets ablaze, forcing tens of thousands from their homes. Rioting between Bodo tribes people and Muslim settlers has raged for days in a region near Bangladesh. Some victims died of machete wounds, said aid workers who have seen the bodies. Police opened fire on rioters burning property in the Bodo-dominated Kokrajhar district, killing the four, police inspector general S.N. Singh said. Police found four more bodies in a neighboring district. "More and more villages are being burnt by attackers this evening. Violence started again in the evening after a brief lull," said a district civil servant. Earlier, hundreds of men armed with spears, clubs and rocks attacked an express train passing through Kokrajhar, injuring several passengers. In another incident, several people suffered bullet wounds and others were injured in a stampede when police fired to disperse a gang of 400, a senior police official said. Soldiers and federal paramilitary troops patrolled Kokrajhar town and outlying areas on armored vehicles mounted with machine guns. Some police complained that they were ill-equipped to deal with the riots, despite government assurances that more security reinforcements were travelling to the region. Rival mobs have spread to rural areas in three districts, targeting hamlets along river banks and in the jungle. About 500 villages have been destroyed by arson, said police. Ringed by China, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Bhutan, India's northeast is connected to the rest of the country by a narrow land strip called the chicken's neck. Home to more than 200 ethnic and tribal groups it has been racked by separatist revolts since India's independence from Britain in 1947. In recent years, Hindu tribes have vented strong anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment against Bangladeshi settlers. The Bodo tribe has clashed with Bengalis in deadly riots several times since the 1950s. Thirty years ago, about 2,000 people, mainly Muslims, died in riots in Assam. The latest violence was sparked when unidentified men killed four youths in Kokrajhar district, police and district officials said. In retaliation, armed Bodos attacked Muslims, suspecting them of being behind the killings.

An Olympic legend has been forced to apologize for a racist slur against the Irish on live television in Britain. Former decathlon champion Daley Thompson, who is black, could lose the chance to light the Olympic torch in London as a result of his gaffe. Thompson has been hit with a deluge of criticism since his anti-Irish joke on the BBC program The One Show. Program bosses were forced to apologize live on air twice after Thompson’s slur. The 53-year-old erred when he was shown a photograph of a torch bearer with the words OYLMPIC torch bearer tattooed onto her arm. Images of the misspelled tattoo have gone global on the Internet but Thompson took an anti-Irish stance when he commented on the photo and said: “The tattooist must have been Irish.” Presenter Matt Baker immediately informed Thompson that the tattoo had been done in the United States.

African-American Ricky Darnell Webster faces 10 to 25 years in prison on his conviction for second-degree sexual assault. He faces two- to 10-years in prison for his conviction on assault during the commission of a felony.

Nigerian Uroko Onoja was having sex with the youngest of his spouses when the remaining five are reported to have set upon him with knives and sticks - and demanded that he have sex with each of them too.
Onoja went on to have intercourse with four of his wives in succession, but stopped breathing as the fifth was making her way to the bed in Ogbadibo. Two women have been arrested following the incident in the state of Benue.

Monday, July 23, 2012

Bongani Nyathi, 42, fondled a student nurse’s breasts and showed a care assistant seedy photographs of his genitals on his mobile phone. The Nursing and Midwifery Council heard he asked the woman: "Do you want this, do you think it is a big one?" Nyathi also complained to colleagues that "English girls don’t cheat on their partners" and asked "what’s wrong with sleeping with lots of other men". He was found guilty of behaving inappropriately towards four colleagues while working as a registered staff nurse at Cow Lee Care Home, in Bedworth, Warwickshire and struck off the register.

The researchers, from the World Health Organization (WHO) and University College London (UCL) found that the most rapid increase in drug resistance occurred in East Africa, at 29% per year. In Southern Africa, it was 14% per year. Drug resistance is a consequence of people not taking their medication properly.

It found that 66% believe paltry job growth and slow economic recovery is the result of bad policy. Thirty-four percent say that Obama is the most to blame, followed by 23% who say Congress is the culprit. Twenty percent point the finger at Wall Street, and 18% cite former President George W. Bush. The results highlight the reelection challenge that Obama faces amid dissatisfaction with his first-term performance on the economy. The poll, conducted for The Hill by Pulse Opinion Research, found that 53% of voters say that Obama has taken the wrong actions and has slowed the economy down. Forty-two percent said that he has taken the right actions to revive the economy, while 6% said that they were not sure. The poll found sharp differences in opinions along racial lines, with 94% of African-Americans saying that Obama had taken the right actions on the economy, compared to 34% of white voters.

By more than 2-1, 63%-29%, those surveyed say that Romney's background in business, including his tenure at the private equity firm Bain Capital, would cause him to make good decisions, not bad ones, in dealing with the nation's economic problems over the next four years. The findings raise questions about Obama's strategy of targeting Bain's record in outsourcing jobs and hammering Romney for refusing to commit to releasing more than two years of his tax returns. Instead, Americans seem focused on the economy, where disappointment with the fragile recovery and the 8.2% unemployment rate are costing Obama.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

In 2008, 81% of adults thought college was a good investment. That number dropped to 57%, according to a national survey of 3,000 Americans commissioned by Country Financial and compiled by Rasmussen Reports. Americans are also increasingly embittered over student debt. In 2011, 31% thought more than $20,000 in student loan debt was too much. In 2012, that number jumped to 42%.

Rezwan Ferdaus has admitted to attempting to provide material support to terrorists and attempting to damage and destroy federal buildings by means of an explosive. Under a plea agreement, federal prosecutors agreed to drop four other charges. Prosecutors and Ferdaus' lawyers also agreed to request a 17-year sentence on charges that carry a combined maximum of 35 years in prison. Ferdaus grew up in Massachusetts and has a physics degree from Boston's Northeastern University. Ferdaus began planning jihad, or holy war, against the United States in early 2010 after becoming convinced through Islamic websites and videos that America was evil.

The Rev. Victor Rosa, 73, was arrested in October 2011 and charged with cashing tenant Maria Sicardo's monthly pension checks for a decade after she died in 2000. To carry out the fraud, he forged papers to prove to the Teachers' Retirement System that she was still alive and living in his building until 2010. The sentence, part of a plea deal Rosa struck with prosecutors in February 2012, included an order that the pastor pay restitution in the amount of $241,000 to the TRS and UFT Welfare Fund. Manhattan Federal Court Judge Paul Engelmayer said that he knew Rosa could not repay the money, so he also ordered Rosa to perform 250 hours of community service when he gets out of prison. "I think it important he give back in some way," said Engelmayer who noted that his mother had been a retired teacher with a TRS pension. Rosa has offered no apology for his crime.

Anti-Semitism on U.S. college campuses is a “serious problem,” concluded the 2006 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. “There is more sympathy for Hamas [on U.S. campuses] than there is in Ramallah,” wrote award-winning Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh, who found during a 2009 speaking tour of the U.S. that it “is not about supporting the Palestinians as much as it is about promoting hatred for the Jewish state.” I think that gentile leftists are just finally realizing that Jews only care about themselves.

Poverty is spreading at record levels across many groups, from underemployed workers and suburban families to the poorest poor. More discouraged workers are giving up on the job market, leaving them vulnerable as unemployment aid begins to run out. Suburbs are seeing increases in poverty, including in such political battlegrounds as Colorado, Florida and Nevada, where voters are coping with a new norm of living hand to mouth. This is why we need to replace Obama with Romney or with anyone who isn't Obama.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Courtney Anthony Robinson has been arrested for attempted murder and is being held on $500,000 bail. Two men and a woman, all homeless people, were stabbed in the back as they slept alone during the early morning hours. The first stabbing occurred on July 3, 2012 in downtown LA’s Skid Row. The second was in Santa Monica and the last one was in Hollywood. All three victims survived the attacks. After interviewing Robinson, detectives believe that he also stabbed two more people in the Santa Barbara area. They say it appears that he targeted the victims for specific reasons but had no relation to them. Police initially believed that Robinson's name could have been David Ben Keyes. That was the pen name used to sign each of the typed “death warrants” that were found with three of the victims.

Prosecutors filed two felony child endangerment charges against Marcus R. Benson, after they found him hiding in a Kansas City attic. The girl’s mother, Jacole Prince, 29, has been charged with assault, child abuse, and child endangerment. Her daughter, identified in court documents only as LP, weighed a shocking 32 pounds when found, less than half the average weight for a child her age.

A co-founder of the popular frozen yogurt chain Pinkberry has been ordered to stand trial on charges that he beat a homeless man with a tire iron in California. A judge denied a motion to dismiss the assault with a deadly weapon case against Young Lee. Lee is free on bail and is no longer affiliated with Pinkberry. Donald Bolding testified that he was begging from drivers on a freeway off-ramp in Hollywood when his shirt rode up and revealed a sexually explicit tattoo. He says that a man he identified as Lee got out of a car, demanded that he apologize to his wife, then attacked him. Bolding was struck twice in the head and suffered a broken arm before witnesses stopped the attack. The homeless man was beaten so brutally he had to be hospitalized. Lee was born in Korea and is a former kick-boxer. Lee - who co-founded the healthy, low-calorie dessert chain - was arrested after a witness called police and gave the license plate number of the Range Rover involved, which was rented in Lee's name. Investigators later recovered the tire iron through the rental car agency. Lee has also been accused of owning illegal guns, according to police. Police searched Lee's Los Angeles home and fleet of luxury cars after his arrest and found two handguns, a Colt .45 and a Para Ordnance Brand .45. A police search warrant affidavit states that, due to a 2001 conviction for drugs possession, Lee is not allowed to own, buy, receive, possess, or have custody or control of any firearms. He also has a conviction for possession of a firearm and could now face this same charge again.

Nordic and English-origin countries as well as wealthy Asian nations are generally the least corrupt. Unfortunately, the United States has gotten more corrupt over the past decade which may have something to do with non-white immigration.

Ben Ari and several other Knesset members received by mail a copy of the New Testament, sent by the Bible Society in Israel, an organization that distributes religious books.
In the letter sent with the book, director of the Christian organization Victor Kalisher wrote that the new edition sheds light on the Holy Scriptures and helps understand them. “We hope the book will help you and illuminate your way,” Kalisher furter wrote. However, while most MK's chose to ignore the book or return it to its sender, the rightist lawmaker chose to term the book a "provocation," tore it up into shreds and then threw it out. “This abominable book (the New Testament) galvanized the murder of millions of Jews during the Inquisition and during auto da fe instances,” Ben Ari said adding that “Sending the book to MK's is a provocation. There is no doubt that this book and all it represents belongs in the garbage can of history.”

Overall, the number of Muslims living in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties has grown from about 70,000 10 years ago to more than 100,000 today. "The Hispanic Muslim community is very well integrated into the Islamic-American community. They go to the same mosques, celebrate the same feasts and holidays and have the same beliefs that the Muslim community around the world has," said Oubay Atassi, 58, who grew up in Argentina and whose father was an ambassador to Syria. He lives in Doral. “We have big families,” said Nezar Hamze, director of the South Florida chapter of the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), referring to the growth in South Florida’s Muslim population. He described Muslim Hispanics as a “minority within a minority.” Much of the growth among Hispanic Muslims comes from Latin America and the Caribbean. Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Ecuador and Chile have large populations of residents with Arab ancestry. Chile is home to more than 200,000 Palestinians. Brazil has an estimated 10 million people of Arab descent, including more than seven million Lebanese. Atassi estimates that 80% of South Florida’s Hispanic Muslims come from migration, with the remaining 20% stemming from conversions. The growth can be seen in South Florida’s mosques and Islamic schools. Shamsuddin Islamic Center in North Miami Beach is expanding, while mosques in Pembroke Pines, Miami Gardens and Kendall, among others, have steadily grown. Masjid Al Sultan Sallah Deen on Griffin Road in Fort Lauderdale is also popular with the Hispanic Muslim community, South Florida’s Muslim leaders say. Shaikh Shafayat Mohamed, the imam at Darul Uloom Institute in Pembroke Pines, expects 600 to 700 to attend services Friday, about 200 more than the average turnout. Of those, Mohamed estimates about 40 to 60 will be Muslims of Hispanic origin, with most being Catholic converts from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Brazil and Ecuador. Most of those who convert are usually younger than 35, he said. The current global Muslim population is 1.6 billion, the world’s second-largest religion after Christianity. Within the next 20 years, projections call for 2.2 billion Muslims by 2030. Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world.

Overall, increasing age was associated with a higher prevalence of metabolic syndrome. However, compared with white and black women, Hispanics had the highest rates across all ages in the cross-sectional study. The Hispanic women aged 30-65 years had the greatest disparity in metabolic syndrome rates, suggesting this age group is at particular risk. Researchers assessed data from Sister to Sister: The Women’s Heart Health Foundation collected through free health screenings in 17 U.S. cities. In 2008 and 2009, 18,892 women were screened for obesity (using both body mass index and waist circumference), hypertension, hyperglycemia, and dyslipidemia. These women also completed cardiovascular risk questionnaires. Nearly 7,000 women had complete clinical and demographic data and were studied further. A total 42% self-identified as non-Hispanic white, 37% as black, 13% as Hispanic, and 8% as "other" race or ethnicity. Overall prevalence of metabolic syndrome in the study was high, at 35%. In addition, "there was a disproportionate burden for Hispanic women and black women," said Dr. Rodriguez, an internal medicine resident at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. A total 40% of Hispanic women met the criteria for metabolic syndrome, as did 39% of black women, 31% of non-Hispanic white women, and 29% of women who identified as "other." For Hispanic woman, much of the disparity is driven by abnormal lipid levels. "Many of these women have high triglyceride levels and low HDL levels ... and this disparity was most pronounced in young women," Dr. Rodriguez said. "It is a different pattern than the metabolic syndrome in black women, where it’s largely driven by waist circumference and hypertension." In addition to assessment of race/ethnicity and age, a third objective of the study was to identify risk-adjusted predictors of metabolic syndrome. The No.1 predictor was Hispanic ethnicity (odds ratio, 1.65), followed by being black (OR, 1.39), compared with non-Hispanic whites. Smoking also was an independent predictor for the syndrome (OR, 1.30), as was increasing age (OR, 1.13).

Regardless of race, students with family incomes in the top tier were seven to eight times more likely to enroll in a highly selective school than students at the bottom tier. It was also found that in the top income tier, white students were four times more likely than black students to attend a highly selective college. On average, two to three times as many white students as black students were enrolled.

Muskogee mall shooting suspect African-American Dondray Fowler has been found guilty on all counts, including first-degree murder. The jury deliberated for four hours before convicting Fowler of first-degree murder and four charges of assault and battery with a deadly weapon. Fowler was accused in the shooting death of 17-year-old Jarrod Reed at Muskogee's Arrowhead Mall in 2010. Five others were injured. The jury recommended a sentence of life with the possibility of parole for the murder charge and an additional 30 years per assault and battery charge.

According to a new study, HPV has a substantial impact on overall survival in African Americans with oropharyngeal cancer, a cancer that affects part of the throat, the base of the tongue, the tonsils, the soft palate (back of the mouth), and the walls of the pharynx (throat). The study shows that African Americans who are HPV positive have better outcomes than African Americans without HPV. Further, African Americans who are HPV negative not only have poorer survival compared to African Americans with HPV, they also did worse than Caucasians both with HPV and without HPV present in oropharyngeal cancer. This study adds to the mounting evidence of HPV as a racially-linked sexual behavior lifestyle risk factor impacting survival outcomes for both African American and Caucasian patients with oropharyngeal cancer. The American Cancer Society's estimates that about 35,000 people in the United States will get oral cavity and oropharyngeal cancers in 2012; an estimated 6,800 people will die of these cancers. Similar to other cancers of the head and neck cancer, risk factors include smoking, alcohol consumption. HPV is also a risk factor for oropharyngeal cancer. To compare survival outcomes in HPV positive and HPV negative African Americans with oropharyngeal cancer, researchers conducted a retrospective study of 118 patients. Among the study group, 67 were HPV negative and 51 were HPV positive. Forty-two of those in the study were African American. The study found that African Americans are less likely to be HPV positive. Those older than 50 are less likely to be HPV positive. Those with late-stage oropharyngeal cancer are more likely to be unmarried and more likely to be HPV positive. HPV negative patients had 2.9 times the risk of death as HPV positive patients. Overall, the HPV race groups differed with significantly poorer survival for HPV negative African Americans versus HPV positive African Americans, HPV positive Caucasians and HPV negative Caucasians

Spanish scientists who studied wild boars found that having grey hair and a rather grizzled look could actually be a sign that you have a long and healthy life ahead of you. However, the news is not so good for redheads - at least in the wild boar population. Wild boars with reddish coats have more cell damage than more mundanely colored wild pigs, Spanish researchers found. The reason is that the production of red pigment uses up an antioxidant that could otherwise be chasing down the free radicals that damage cells. In humans, studies have found that red hair and red pigments, or melanins, in skin are linked to higher rates of cancer. Given that all higher vertebrates, including humans, share the same types of melanins in skin, hair and plumage, these results increase our scant current knowledge on the physiological consequences of pigmentation. The researchers looked at two types of melanin, the pigment that gives our hair and skin its color. Eumelanins are brown or black, while pheomelanins produce bright red or rich chestnut hues. Unlike eumelanin, pheomelanin requires a chemical called glutathione, or GSH, to produce the color. GSH is an antioxidant, meaning it can halt the chemical reaction of oxidation. Oxidation reactions cause free radicals, which in turn cause cellular damage. Researchers wanted to know whether producing red hair would eat up GSH, leaving the body's cells more vulnerable to free radicals. They tested wild boars from southwestern Spain for oxidative stress, a measure of free radical damage.
They found that the more pheomelanin a boar had in its fur, the more likely it was to have less GSH in the muscle cells and more oxidative stress. Pheomelanin responsible for chestnut colorations may make animals more susceptible to oxidative damage. Meanwhile, gray hair, which results from an absence of melanin, seemed to be a mark of good health in wild boars. The scientists found that boars showing hair graying were actually those in prime condition and with the lowest levels of oxidative damage. Far from being a sign of age-related decline, hair graying seems to indicate good condition in wild boars.

Camnong Boa-Ubol, 62, is accused of repeatedly raping the girl over a period of two years when he worked at a Chicago temple. The 62-year-old was charged with one count of aggravated criminal sexual assault and was ordered to be held on $5 million bail at Cook County Circuit court. The attack took place at the Wat Dhammaram temple in unincorporated Stickney Township. The court heard that the victim was just 13-years-old when Boa-Ubol approached her in a nearby car park and said that he would pay her if she cleaned around the outside of the temple. It was when she started working inside the temple that the monk started kissing her, which eventually led to her first rape in 1997. He paid her money to keep quiet about it and threatened to kill her father if she spoke of the assault or did not return to the temple. The assaults and threats continued for two years until the victim became pregnant. She gave birth in 2000. Assistant State's Attorney Donna Norton told the court that it wasn't until 2009 that she spoke out about the attacks. A DNA test taken in March 2010 showed that there was a 99.999% probability that Boa-Ubol was the father.

A total of 91 foreign nationals were charged with murder and 406 accused of rape. In London, of the 547 people charged with rape in the past 12 months, 174 were non-British citizens. They included immigrants from Afghanistan, Angola, Ghana, Macedonia, Russia, Zimbabwe and Chile. Kent has the highest proportion of foreign murder suspects with 53 per cent being non-UK citizens, including four people from India and three from Romania (most likely Gypsies). The nations whose individuals were charged the most frequently with rape in the capital were Jamaica, 19 suspects, Nigeria, 11, Poland, 10, and Australia, 9.

There was a time when those elite schools were run by a benign establishment, generally white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, who saw their role as civilizing and uplifting. Unfortunately that time has passed.

The jobless rate was at 9.7% in May 2012. Wall Street, the bedrock of the city's economy, added 2,200 workers in June 2012, boosting the sector's total employment to 173,000. The addition fits the usual pattern for June when New York Stock Exchange member firms typically hire interns. One year-ago, Wall Street employed 171,700 workers. Public-sector employment, however, fell by 6,200 in June from May. In June 2011, the city's unemployment rate was 8.9%. On a seasonally adjusted basis, New York City added 5,100 jobs in June 2012, noted Barbara Byrne Denham, chief economist at Eastern Consolidated, a real estate investment services firm. She said that the gain is significantly below gains of the last five months and that May's jobs figure was revised down to just 7,700 new jobs, seasonally adjusted, from the original figure of 12,300 new jobs. New York state's unemployment also rose in June 2012, to 8.9% from 8.6% in May, and up from 8.2% one year ago. The U.S. unemployment rate was 8.2% in June 2012.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Shasta Khan, 38, and her husband Mohammed, 33, became Islamic terrorists intent on plotting to murder members of the Jewish community on British soil. A court heard that the couple planned to use chapati flour, bleach and Christmas tree lights to make a bomb and carried out reconnaissance for targets. Their activities were discovered only by chance when police were called to a domestic disturbance at their terraced home in Oldham. Officers who searched the property discovered propaganda glorifying Osama Bin Laden, guides to bomb-making and a video from 2004 of British hostage Ken Bigley being beheaded in Iraq. British-born Shasta Khan, who has an 18-year-old daughter from a previous marriage, screamed and wept as she was convicted of engaging in preparation for terrorism and two counts of possessing information useful for terrorism. Her husband had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to preparation for acts of terrorism. Manchester Crown Court heard that the Khans met on the Single Muslim dating site in July 2010.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

So grave is the crisis that in some US cities, one in two black men who have sex with other men are HIV positive, according to a report from the Black AIDS Institute, the only national HIV-AIDS think tank focusing on African Americans. "AIDS in America is a black disease, no matter how you look at it," its president and chief executive Phill Wilson, who is himself HIV positive. The 74-page report, "Back of the Line: The State of AIDS Among Black Gay Men in America," says black gay and bisexual men make up one in 500 Americans overall, but account for one in four new HIV infections in the United States. HIV prevalence among such men is twice as high than among their white counterparts. They are also far less likely to be alive three years after being diagnosed with AIDS than white or Latino gays and bisexuals. What's more, black gay and bisexual men are seven times more likely than non-black counterparts to have undiagnosed HIV. "Black gay and bisexual men are still being devastated by HIV and AIDS," said Wilson, whose Los Angeles-based organization counts the prestigious Ford Foundation and the Elton John AIDS Foundation among its funding sources. "The AIDS epidemic is not over in that population. Quite frankly, it is the worst epidemic in all of the developed world, and an epidemic that rivals much of the developing world." The concerns echo those of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which recently called upon African American clergy to do more to address the HIV-AIDS crisis. "Black people are more likely to be diagnosed with HIV, more likely to die from the disease, and less likely to receive treatment than any other race" in the United States, said the civil rights organization in a report.
Citing data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it said African Americans represent 13% of the total population, yet account for more than half of all new HIV diagnoses. Wilson, 56, attributed part of the problem to the black community's slow response in the early days of the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s, when it was already wrestling with poverty, unemployment and the spread of crack cocaine. Today, he said, black gay men in mid-sized southern cities such as Memphis, Tennessee and Richmond, Virginia face not only the greatest risk of infection, but also the least access to help. Wilson also faulted mainstream gay rights groups for putting the HIV-AIDS crisis on the back burner, now that it is no longer a pressing issue for affluent gays in big cities whose bigger concern today is marriage equality. "There are almost no national LGBT organizations today that give a rat's ass about the lives of black gay men as they are impacted by HIV-AIDS, and that's disgraceful," he said. "The other issue deals with health care and access to health care... We have higher levels of unemployment in this population, higher levels of folks who don't have health care."

Fifty-four percent of registered voters cite the economy and jobs as "extremely" important in their presidential vote, more than any other issue. Here Romney has the edge: 49% of registered voters say that he would do a better job handling the economy and jobs, while 41% cite Obama. Romney is also seen as better on the federal budget deficit (50% to 36%), taxes (47%to 42%) and illegal immigration (46% to 38%). Only 28% believe that Obama has fulfilled his promise to deliver positive change for the country. Fifty-eight percent say that he has not delivered change, while 7% say that he has delivered change that has been bad for the country. Obama's overall approval rating stands at 44%, with 46% disapproving. His approval rating on the economy is just 39% - 55% disapprove - and his approval rating on foreign policy is 41%. Seven in ten Americans say that the economy is in bad shape. While 24% say it is getting better, 30% say that it is getting worse. Two in five Americans say that they are very concerned someone in their household will lose their job.

Vastie Coleman, 27, has been charged with injury to a child with serious bodily injury and was ordered held without bond in the Harris County Jail in connection to the death of Kyron Barnes. According to Child Protective Services records, the victims’ two surviving sisters, ages six and eight, said that their mother would routinely thrash them.

Officials believe that the presence of Africans poses a threat to the “Jewish character” of the state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who believes immigrants are swamping his country, has claimed that African migrants “are seen by many Israelis as a law and order issue and even a threat to the long-term viability of the Jewish state.” The Prime Minister promised that in order to stop the hiring of illegal African immigrants the legislation would be strictly enforced. Israeli authorities are ready to grant 1,000 euros to any African who agrees to freely leave within five days. Some immigrants have agreed, while others are going to be repatriated by force.
Over a hundred African men, women, and children, mostly South Sudanese, have been reportedly detained in the Red Sea port of Eilat. Senior immigration official Yossi Edelstein reported on Israel Radio “We have arrested about 140 infiltrators up until last night, the main portion of who are South Sudanese.” The handcuffed detainees were brought to the Saharonim detention facility in the Negev Desert. According to Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai, the first to be deported are going to be 1,500 refugees from South Sudan, who fled the civil war that split their country. “The next stage is the removal from Israel of all the infiltrators from Eritrea and Sudan, whose number comes close to 50,000 people,” the Interior Minister said. Still, the deportation is legally questionable and the Interior Ministry admits it. “At the moment, we are permitted only to deport from Israel the citizens of South Sudan and the Ivory Coast,” Interior Minister Eli Yishai said. This raises concerns about those Africans who are going to be detained and put into camps pending deportation. But for Minister Eli Yishai, who also heads the Shas religious party, saying “no” to alien deportation plans means “shelving the declaration of independence, and the end of the Zionist dream.” The Israeli parliament is also fueling anti-African rhetoric. Parliamentarians in the Knesset do not hesitate to label Africans “cancer” and the “AIDS to Israeli people”. It must be said that the majority of the 7.8 million Israelis supports government migrantion policies. The latest opinion poll showed 52% of Israelis agree that Africans pose a threat to Israel. A few Israelis tend to shift blame for the economic and demographic crisis on illegal immigrants, mostly coming to Israel via the poorly guarded border with Egypt in the Sinai Desert. There have been a number of anti-immigrant demonstrations in Israel in recent months. The latest was held in Tel Aviv. Some participants of the rally accused the African immigrants of coming to their country “to steal and rape”, proposing to “burn them out” and “put poison in their food”. The majority of the Israeli are against illegal aliens and there have been a number of hate crimes against Africans. Recently someone set fire on to an Eritrean migrant’s home in Jerusalem, injuring three men. Israeli police said that it appeared to be a racist attack. One Eritrean suffered serious burns, and a pregnant woman and her husband were treated for smoke inhalation. Israeli scientist Dr. Shalva Weil warns of another “threat” to the state of Israel. Dr. Weil is an anthropologist and expert on Ethiopian Jewry of Hebrew University claims that in the past 15 years there has been a sharp rise in the number of African tribes "rediscovering" their Jewish heritage. "It's important that in Israel people understand that millions of people throughout Africa consider themselves Jewish,” the professor said. “As far as they are concerned, they are the sons of the lost tribes, and are certain that the Promised Land awaits them."

Researchers have found that darker-colored individuals had higher levels of aggression and sexuality than lighter colored individuals across three species of mammals (African lion, soay sheep, and white-tailed deer), four species of fish (mosquito fish, guppy, green swordtail, and Arctic char), four species of reptiles (asp viper, adder, fence lizard, and spiny lizard), one amphibian species (spadefoot toad), and 36 species of birds. The researchers believe that increased levels of melanocortin hormones, which determine coloring, are linked with increased testosterone and other steroids that stimulate aggression and sexuality, among other things. This link between coloring and behavior has been confirmed in many other species — even tortoises. In Russia, a 40-year-study bred for tameness in silver foxes and found that lightness coincidentally emerged. After 40 years, the selected foxes were as tame and eager to please as domestic dogs — and the dark coat colors originally evolved as camouflage in the wild had been replaced by piebald. (Piebald coats are often seen among domestic animals — in dogs, cats, sheep, donkeys, horses, pigs, goats, mice, and cattle). Similarly, selecting for tameness over 30 generations of Norway rats caused the proportion of piebald rats to increase rapidly until over 70% had white bellies and about 50% had white feet and ankles —“socks". Dogs, too, show a relationship between coat color and behavior — and dog lovers have figured it out. Shelters have a harder time getting black dogs adopted. Researchers have also found clear evidence that darker pigmentation is indeed associated with higher levels of aggression and sexuality in humans — just as it is in animals. Researchers compared people of African descent with those of European and Asian descent. Worldwide — ever since record keeping began — blacks have averaged higher levels of aggression and sexuality than whites and Asians. In 1996, a government commission in Canada found that blacks were five times more likely than whites to be in jail and ten times more likely than Asians. In 1999, a Home Office report in Britain found that blacks made up 15% of the prison population although they made up only 2% of the general population. In 1999, a large study in the U.S. analyzed the FBI Uniform Crime Statistics and National Crime Victimization Surveys from the U.S. Department of Justice and found that, since record keeping began at the turn of the century, African Americans engaged in proportionately more acts of violence than other groups. It has been found that blacks averaged the highest rates of childhood and adolescent psychopathy and conduct disorder. An analysis of the 1993-1996 INTERPOL Yearbooks and found that the rate of murder, rape, and serious assault was four times higher in African and Caribbean countries than elsewhere in the world. The rate of violent crimes for African countries was 149 per 100,000 people; for European, 42; and for Asian, 35. Blacks are over-represented relative to Asians and Europeans in sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) like syphilis, gonorrhea, herpes, chlamydia, and HIV/AIDS. In 2007, of the more than 1 million people living in the U.S. with HIV/AIDS, almost half (46%) were black. The black-White difference in HIV/AIDS is found worldwide, with especially high rates in sub-Saharan Africa. Thus the rate for Botswana was 24.8%, South Africa was 17.8%, Zambia was 14.6%, and Zimbabwe was 14.3%. A very high rate of HIV/AIDS is also found in the black Caribbean. Recent contact with Africa has been minimal, but the HIV/AIDS rates are as high in the Caribbean today as they were in sub-Saharan Africa 20 years ago: 3.1% in the Bahamas, 2.9% in Haiti, 1.7% in Jamaica. A 2006 study found a remarkably high correlation of 0.92 between skin color and national IQ across 129 countries and within each of the three continents: -0.86 for Africa; -0.55 for Asia; and -0.63 for Europe. The correlations are negative because darker skin color predicted lower IQ scores. In 2008, another study found that, across 129 countries, skin color correlated with IQ (-0.91), birth rate (0.85), infant mortality (0.71), longevity (-0.84), rate of HIV/AIDS (0.53), and GDP (0.60). Subsequently, in a 2009 study , researchers found that skin color also correlated with crime in 113 countries (homicide, 0.34; rape, 0.24: and serious assault, 0.25) as well as with IQ (-0.91), GDP (-0.57), HIV/AIDS (0.56), birth rate (0.87), longevity (-0.85), and infant mortality (0.76). Rates of murder, rape, and serious assault correlated with those of HIV/AIDS (0.48, 0.57, and 0.42, respectively). Finally, in 2011, researchers confirmed the international findings using data from within the 50 U.S. states. Skin color was measured by the percentage of blacks in the state. It correlated with infant mortality (0.41), longevity (-0.66), HIV/AIDS (0.74), birth rate (0.12), murder (0.84), robbery (0.77), assault (0.54), as well as IQ (-0.48) and income (-0.28).

The children of women who’ve had same-sex relationships fare quite differently than those in stable, biologically-intact mom-and-pop families, displaying numbers more comparable to those from heterosexual step-families and single parents. Even after including controls for age, race, gender, and things like being bullied as a youth, or the gay-friendliness of the state in which they live, such respondents were more apt to report being unemployed, less healthy, more depressed, more likely to have cheated on a spouse or partner, smoke more pot, had trouble with the law, report more male and female sex partners, more sexual victimization, and were more likely to reflect negatively on their childhood family life, among other things. The children of fathers who have had same-sex relationships fare a bit better, but they seldom reported living with their father for very long, and never with his partner for more than three years.

Monday, July 16, 2012

In one village in Cambodia, fathers go out of their way to encourage their daughters to have sex: by building them love huts. Members of the Kreung tribe in the northeast of the country believe that women can be empowered through spending the night with different members of the other sex. And when a girl reaches her early teenage years, or possibly even before, the love hut becomes the place for her to meet and get to know boys before deciding on her one true love. The tribe believes the ancient practice is the best way for girls to find their future husbands. But in a country where HIV and AIDS remains prevalent, and where concerns are often raised about the exploitation of youngsters in sex trafficking cases, the idea of encouraging youngsters to have sex so openly remains surprising. Until recently, the Kreung people used to use a cocktail of alcohol and a centipede as a contraceptive.

India has 18% of the world's population; but just 4% of the world's renewable water sources. A single tap - which the government turns on just three times a day - is shared by around 100,000 people in one area of New Delhi, India's capital.

Moses Trotter, 32, from Sacramento, was arrested after police surrounded the victim's home and ordered him to come out. Police were first called to the area after another resident reported a naked man had broken in. When he chased him out of the house, Trotter then entered another on Olympic Way and when police arrived, he ran out bloody and naked. After a brief struggle he was detained and arrested. The victim, who is in her eighties, had obvious signs of trauma to her body. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Trotter is being held without bail in the Sacramento County Main Jail on a felony murder charge.

Kathy Le, George Dac Nguyen, Jennifer Ngo, Charles Nguyen and Margaret Ngo kept the victims - as well as 25 dogs - as near-prisoners in their upscale, two-storey San Jose home. They are expected to enter pleas during an arraignment in Santa Clara County Superior Court on charges of dependent-abuse and animal neglect. They could spend up to 18 years in prison if convicted.

A large body of research shows that the children of single mothers are more likely than similar children with married parents to experience childhood poverty, act up in class, become teenage parents and drop out of school. Married couples are having children later than they used to, divorcing less and investing heavily in parenting time. By contrast, a growing share of single mothers have never married, and many have children with more than one man. The people with more education tend to have stable family structures with committed, involved fathers. The people with less education are more likely to have complex, unstable situations involving men who come and go. Nearly half the unmarried parents living together at a child’s birth split up within five years. The growth in single parenthood in recent decades has accounted for 15% to 40% of the widening income gaps. As recently as 1990, just 10% of the births to white women with some post-secondary schooling but not a full college degree occurred outside marriage. Now it has tripled to 30%, compared with just 8% for women of all races with college degrees. Less-educated women are also more likely to have children with more than one man. A third of those with high school degrees or less already had children with multiple men. So did 12% of mothers with some post-high-school training. Women who have finished college before giving birth are unlikely to have children with multiple men. Having men in the house for a short time with ambiguous parenting roles can be really disruptive for children. Among children raised in the poorest third as teenagers, 58% living with two parents moved up to a higher level as adults, compared with just 44% of those with an absent parent. Just 15% of teenagers living with two parents fell to the bottom third, compared with 27% of teenagers without both parents. You’re more likely to rise out of the bottom if you live with two parents, and you’re less likely to fall out of the top. Researchers have found that marriage itself can have a motivating effect, pushing men to earn more than unmarried peers. Marriage, that is, can help make men marriageable.

The late night incident in the city of Guwahati in the north of the country has caused outrage, with people furious at the slow police response. In the attack, which was captured on film by an off-duty journalist, a group of at least 20 men can be seen running towards the victim before grabbing her hair and pinning her to the ground. Shockingly no one comes to the assistance of the girl as she screams for help with bystanders and shop owners remaining spectators as the drama unfolds. During the horrific ordeal, which lasted for 30 minutes, she is beaten and stripped. The police have come under fire for taking 45 minutes to respond, despite the station being less than a mile away. A total of six men have so far been arrested in connection with the incident but the police are under increasing pressure to catch the remaining seven suspects. Posters have gone up across the city and in an attempt to calm public anger the Chief Minister for the Assam region Tarun Gogoi has issued state police with a 48-hour deadline to arrest the remaining suspects. Some of the videos on YouTube show the identities of the men in a bid to catch the culprits. India has one of the worst women's rights reputations among developing countries and this is the latest in a string of horrific attacks on women. Recently a father was shown parading his daughter's head around his village in what was described as a so-called honor killing.

Mohammed Anwar, a police officer in the city of Khanewal in the eastern Punjab province, said that the child was born at a hospital in the nearby town of Kacha Khuh.
But after seeing his little girl, father Chand Khan is said to have been shocked that she had abnormal features. He then set about planning how to dispose of her body. He told relatives that the baby was born dead and arranged a funeral for the girl. But shockingly, the baby let out a cry during the service. Chand is then accused of burying the girl alive. Residents alerted authorities after seeing him take the baby to the graveyard. Khan, who has four other children, will be sentenced to death if he is found guilty of killing his daughter. Police say that they will now exhume the child's body to perform an autopsy. Khan's wife was still at the hospital when the baby was buried. The case has also shed light on prejudices in Pakistan against children, especially girls, who are born with physical deformities.

These temporary marriages are not legally binding and end when the men return to their homes in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. The tourists pay a 'dowry' to poor families through intermediaries with prices ranging from £320 to £3,200. The young victims - some under 18 - suffer sexual slavery and are forced to be servants to their "husbands", says the U.S. State Department report Trafficking in Persons. No foreigner can marry an Egyptian girl if there is an age difference of 10 years, according to state laws. But parents and marriage brokers are getting round the restriction. They will forge birth certificates to make the girls appear older and the men younger. In 2009, a court in Alexandria jailed two registrars for conducting temporary marriages of hundreds of girls under 18. Sex before marriage is banned under Islamic law and most hotels and landlords demand proof before allowing a couple to share the same room. But the report found that many parents will marry their daughter without her consent and often the girls agree to the arrangement because their families have no money. Some of the victims are taken back to their husband's country to work as maids while those left in Egypt are shunned by the Islamic society - particularly if they have children during their temporary marriage. The shame leads many of the girls to dump these youngsters in orphanages or abandon them with thousands of other Egyptian street children. Many of these "brides" are also targeted by Egyptian men and forced into prostitution.

Psychologists have found that female IQ scores have risen above men's for the first time in 100 years. Women have been as much as five points behind men since testing began a century ago, but that gap has narrowed in recent times. in 2012, women finally came out on top - and it may be because they are better at multitasking. The breakthrough has been uncovered by James Flynn, a researcher of IQ tests. According to Flynn, in the last 100 years the IQ scores of both men and women have risen but women's have risen faster which he believes is a consequence of modernity. He says that the complexity of the modern world is making our brains adapt and raising our IQ and the full effect of modernity on women is only just emerging. Flynn will publish his findings in a new book, but said that more data was needed to explain the trend because tests have consistently shown differences between gender and race. Flynn, emeritus professor of political studies at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, collated new IQ tests from countries in western Europe and from America, Canada, New Zealand, Argentina and Estonia. These showed that in westernized countries the gap between men and women had become insignificant. In Australia, male and female IQs were found to be almost identical while in New Zealand, Estonia and Argentina, women scored marginally more than men.

The gang of about a dozen people beat, abused and robbed youngsters at the retreat located in a park in the State of Mexico just southeast of the capital, the local attorney general's office said in a statement. About 90 youths were camped out there and local media said that the victims belonged to a church group. The gang raped seven young women before leaving in two stolen vehicles. The attorney general's office in the state said that it had witness descriptions of the attackers. Mexico's most populous state, the State of Mexico was ruled by President-elect Enrique Pena Nieto between 2005-2011. Human rights groups complain that the state has one of the worst records in the country on violence against women. In a recent report, Amnesty International singled out the state for abuses against women, and said that Mexican police solve only one in every 21 rapes.

Humans and other creatures with large brains relative to their body size tend to have smaller guts and possibly fewer offspring. Scientists have debated for decades whether the two phenomena are related. Now a team of researchers says that they are—and that big brains do indeed make us smart. The finding comes thanks to an unusual experiment at the Evolution Ottawa evolutionary biology meeting in which scientists shrank and grew the brains of guppies over several generations. Researchers first began to gather evidence that big brains were advantageous after 19th century U.S. biologist Hermon Bumpus examined the brains of sparrows, some of whom had succumbed in a blizzard and some of whom survived. The survivors had relatively larger brains. More recently, evolutionary biologist Alexei Maklakov from Uppsala University in Sweden found evidence that songbirds that colonize cities tend to have larger brains relative to their body size than species still confined to the countryside. The challenge of urban life might require bigger brains, he and his colleagues concluded. Yet in humans and in certain electric fish, larger brain size seems to have trade-offs: smaller guts and fewer offspring. That's led some scientists to suggest there are constraints on how big brains can become because they are expensive to build and maintain. To try to sort out the pluses and minuses of having a larger brain, Alexander Kotrschal, a postdoctoral fellow at Uppsala University, and his colleagues bred two lines of guppies. For each generation, he dissected the parents and measured their relative brain size to decide which offspring to breed, selecting those with the biggest and the smallest-brained parents to create two lines. After two generations the team documented up to a 10% difference in brain size between the two lines in females and an 8% difference in males. The researchers then tested how smart the fish were by trying to teach them to count. The team trained the animals to look for food where a card had either two or four symbols. "The large-brained fish seem to be able to get it," Kotrschal reported at the meeting, but not the small-brained fish. "When you experimentally manipulate brain size, you get cleverer fish." The guppies' big brains came at a cost, however. The small-brained fish averaged seven offspring in their first brood whereas the large-brained fish had only six. And the guts of the small-brained fish weighed 5.5 milligrams compared with just 4 milligrams for the large-brained fish. "If you select for a trait as complex as brain size, you going to lose with other traits," says Wesley Warren, a biologist at Washington University in St. Louis who was not involved with the study. That primates have fewer offspring compared to other mammals and humans have fewer still, may be a consequence of the bigger brains, Kotrschal suggested.

A German neo-Nazi who drove into a group of leftists, leaving one with a brain injury, has been acquitted of attempted manslaughter. The judge found that he was acting in self-defense. The 29-year-old accused was sitting in his car in a car park when he was approached by a group of left-wing extremists, who had their faces covered. The neo-Nazi reacted by starting the ignition and driving into them at speed, hitting a 22-year-old. The young man suffered a severe head injury and hemorrhaging, and continues to suffer from a speech impediment and motor dysfunctions. But a Freiburg court acquitted the neo-Nazi of all charges. The judge ruled that he had acted in self-defence while trying to escape, and that the prosecution had failed to prove that he was deliberately trying to harm anyone. "Justice is not biased," the judge said in her closing statements, adding that the trial had not been about political views, but whether a crime had been committed. She argued that the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" also applied to neo-Nazis. I very much doubt that anyone in the NAACP, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the ADL or the Obama administration would agree with the judge. Good for her!

After serving part of a six-year sentence for a 2003 bank robbery, African-American parolee Daryl Lamont Keener went right back to his old tricks, authorities say, joining an accomplice in eight more bank heists in Colorado Springs. It’s unlikely there will be a repeat performance. Keener, 31, has been sentenced to 1,256 years in prison – a result of Colorado’s stiff sentencing for repeat criminals and one of the most severe penalties in El Paso County’s recent history. Fourth Judicial District Judge David S. Prince imposed the penalty after Keener’s recent conviction for a 2011 robbery spree. Police described Keener as a career criminal in announcing his March 2011 arrest, and detailed terrifying scenes in which Keener and a second man took turns storming into banks and ordering people onto the floor at gunpoint. The men were arrested after detectives linked them to a getaway car captured on tape by a surveillance camera as it fled a March 3, 2011, robbery at Key Bank, 1115 Elkton Drive. Among Keener’s charges related to the spree were multiple counts saying that he is a habitual offender – a sentence enhancer with the potential to quadruple penalties. Under Colorado’s sentencing laws, the multiplier would apply to each named victim in every bank robbed by Keener. Getting to a total in excess of 1,200 years, however, required Judge Prince to exercise his discretion to stack those sentences rather than rolling all eight robberies together for a single triple-digit sentence.

According to Weil, the past 15 years have seen a sharp rise in the number of tribes throughout Africa who are "rediscovering" their Jewish heritage. Weil, from the Research Institute for Innovation in Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is an anthropologist and expert on Ethiopian Jewry who has spent years studying the Ethiopian community and its acclimation into Israeli society. Weil recently gave a series of talks throughout South Africa and took part in a conference on African Jews hosted by the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, where she spoke about racism toward Ethiopian Jews in Israel. The conference was the second one to be devoted to Black Judaism, after the establishment of the International Society for the Study of African Jewry (ISSAJ) by Dr. Edith Bruder of France. The 2012 event was held not only to encourage research on the issue, but also to allow representatives of the different communities to meet each other. Weil explains that every one of the African groups has a unique story. For example, the Lemba people of South Africa, Zimbabwe and in Mozambique and Malawi numbers some 70,000 Christians, but its leaders claim that they are the descendants of Yemenite Jews who migrated to South Africa. The Lemba people are seeking recognition as the descendants of Jews and have even appealed to the South African Jewish community for financial support to build synagogues. Or take the Igbo Jews of Nigeria, who claim that they are descended from Syrian and Portuguese Jews who moved to Africa centuries ago. The Igbo Jews observe the laws of niddah and kosher slaughter, and circumcise their sons eight days after they are born, as well as observing the major Jewish holidays. The Igbo Jews have already built three synagogues that serve some 30,000 members. Each such group has its own narrative, but they all want to strengthen their Jewish identity and hope that Israeli and Jewish institutions will recognize them as Jews. Weil says that from an academic perspective, Black Judaism is a varied and exciting field. But she feels that the Israeli establishment is not aware of the phenomenon or its ramifications. "It's important that in Israel people understand that millions of people throughout Africa consider themselves Jewish. Some declare themselves 'Jewish according to halacha.' As far as they are concerned, they are the sons of the lost tribes, and are certain that the Promised Land awaits them."

Saturday, July 14, 2012

She is on the wrong side of same-sex marriage and abortion as far as Romney’s political base is concerned. She goes beyond most Republicans in actually calling for legal abortion. Polls over several elections have shown that a significant number of “values voters” might stay home if a GOP presidential ticket included a candidate with those views. President Obama has the African-American vote sewed up, and the presence of Rice on the ticket would be unlikely to dislodge many voters from those loyalties. Being from California, she would also not affect enough votes to put that state in play in November. Her record as secretary of state was mixed. It includes some successes but also featured a truly disastrous kowtowing to North Korea, which has continued its nuclear program despite several U.S. attempts to cut a deal with the rogue regime.

The Coalition of African-American Pastors [CAAP], headed by Reverend William Owens, said that the NAACP has abandoned its core mission by supporting the policy. I wonder if Obama's support for same-sex marriage will cause a reduction in voter turnout among more religious blacks in November?

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman promised Germany’s Jewish and Muslim communities that they would be free to carry out circumcision on young boys despite a court ban. The government said that it would find a way around the Cologne court ban as a matter of urgency. Apparently only Christians have to obey the law in Germany.

The cult members ate their victims brains raw and concocted soup from their penises. Despite the criminal charges they face, “they don’t think they’ve done anything wrong; they admit what they’ve done openly,” Police Commander Anthony Wagambie, of the Madang province, said. The killers said that they were seeking revenge against the witch doctors, whom they claim were evil sorcerers who extorted money and demanded sex from poor villagers in exchange for their services. By eating their organs, the cult members believed that they would personally benefit by absorbing their supernatural powers and becoming bullet-proof, Wagambie said. These types of beliefs are common, he said, estimating that between 700 and 1,000 cult members live scattered throughout Papua New Guinea’s northeast interior. The majority have likely consumed human flesh. All but one (whose whereabouts remain unclear) of the 29 suspects have appeared in a Madang court, where they were charged with willful murder. The outcome of the trial has yet to be determined, with the suspects currently held in custody. Wagambie said that he expected police to make around 100 more arrests for cult-related crimes.